Final legislative action on two hot-button issues — common law marriage and the Ten Commandments — is being delayed until next year.

With the Legislature rushing to finish business by Thursday’s adjournment date, Senate leaders say there isn’t enough time to bring up the two measures and take care of more pressing needs, such as seat belts, state retirement system reform and the governor’s vetoes, which took up most of last week.

As a result, they say, bills banning common law marriage and allowing the Ten Commandments to be displayed on public property were relegated to Senate Judiciary subcommittees, where the bills have been languishing since April.

The House has adopted both measures by overwhelming margins:

• The Ten Commandments legislation would allow the words to be displayed “along with other documents of historical significance that have formed and influenced the United States’ legal or governmental system.”

• Under the common law marriage bill, the state would have stopped recognizing common law marriages after Dec. 31, 2005. State law now enables a person without a marriage license to receive some spousal benefits in cases of the death of, or separation from, a partner.

TEN COMMANDMENTS

The Ten Commandments debate has stirred the most emotions.

The House-passed measure would allow any state entity — from schools to the state Supreme Court and the National Guard — to display the Ten Commandments.

“This delay gives us another opportunity to block this bill,” says Denyse Williams, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina.

She maintains the display of the commandments on public property violates the First Amendment ban on any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”

She says the only way the ACLU can accept the display is for it to be set up like the U.S. Supreme Court, which has two tablets with Roman numerals and no words.

A U.S. Supreme Court frieze depicts Moses and the tablets, as well as 17 other figures including Confucius, Napoleon and former Chief Justice John Marshall.

Because it includes secular figures in a way that doesn’t endorse religion, the display would be constitutional, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens suggested in a 1989 ruling.

House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, says the House bill codifies the earlier Supreme Court ruling.

But the issue still is being discussed here and in Washington.

The high court heard arguments last month about whether Ten Commandments displays on government property cross the line of separation between church and state.

State Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, chief architect of the Senate bill, took the blame for failure to get the Ten Commandments issue before the Senate this session.

“I have to accept some of the responsibility for not camping out on the doorsteps of people who can make it happen,” he said. “We’ll do that next year. We’ll force it.”

The legislation is before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee headed by state Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, who says some members are cool toward the legislation.

One of them is state Sen. Kay Patterson, D-Richland.

“I’m not all that enthused about displaying the Ten Commandments inside the State House,” he said. “It would be hypocritical and a farce.

“We’ve got some mean-spirited people in here who need to start trying to live the Ten Commandments first.”

MARRIAGE BILL

Attorneys who practice before probate and family courts were deeply disappointed by the delay in the common law marriage bill.

“It is absolutely needed,” said John McDougall, a Columbia lawyer.

“The problem is that we’ve got so many people living together that they don’t have a clue that they have a common law marriage. We’ve got common law marriages coming out of the woodwork.”

Problems arise when one of the partners gets hurt on the job, he said, or when an estate has to be settled, or when medical benefits are assigned.

The bill would have a positive impact on common law marriage in that it would bring a halt to the litigation crowding the dockets of family and probate courts, some say.

“If you want to have all the benefits of marriage, go get a marriage license,” McDougall said.

South Carolina is among a handful of states that allow a heterosexual couple to become legally married without a license or a ceremony.

There is a common misconception that if you live together for a certain length of time — seven years is what many people believe — you have a common law marriage. This is not true anywhere in the United States.

In South Carolina, a common law marriage is established if a man and a woman intend for others to believe they are married.

To have a valid common law marriage, couples must hold themselves out as married, typically using the same last name, referring to the other as “my husband” or “my wife,” filing a joint tax return, and announcing intentions to be married.

Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, has blocked similar legislation in previous sessions and vows to do it again if this bill reaches the Senate floor. He says if two people want to live together without getting married, “that’s their business.”

But Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee, to which the common law marriage bill was assigned, says the matter needs to be resolved.

“There is too much ambiguity in the law,” he said. “We need to bring clarity to this issue.”

Reach Bandy at (803) 771-8648 or lbandy@thestate.com.